Kon-Tiki

Six scantily-clothed young Norwegians surviving by their wits in the open ocean: what’s not to like? Think "Gilligan's Island" – but on purpose.

Kon-Tiki in the Pacific Ocean, 1947

Kon-Tiki is the name of both a raft and an expedition led by Norwegian explorer and writer Thor Heyerdahl in 1947. Heyerdahl and his crew sailed the raft from Peru to the Polynesian islands to demonstrate the possibility that people from South America could have settled Polynesia in pre-Columbian times.

The theory Heyerdahl was trying to prove was a little bit kooky, it has to be said. He believed that a sun-worshipping fair-haired, blue-eyed Caucasian people from South America (whom he called the “Tiki people”) reached Polynesia first and from the east. As it happens, the theory has been overwhelmingly rejected by the research: linguistic, archaeological, genetic, botanical, navigational – much of it even before the expedition took place.

But despite the spurious motivation, the journey was undoubtedly epic, compelling and eminently photogenic. [Ed: Six scantily clothed Norwegians surviving by their wits in the open ocean … what’s not to like?]

Thor Heyerdahl > Sill from "Kon Tiki" 1951 > People of Kon-Tiki > The journey of Kon-Tiki

The raft was built using balsa wood, bamboo and ropes, in an indigenous style recorded in illustrations by Spanish conquistadores, and following the design of ancient South American rafts. [Ed: Think Gilligan’s Island … but on purpose.]

Heyerdahl and five companions sailed the raft for 101 days travelling over 6,900km (4,300 miles) across the Pacific Ocean before smashing into a reef at Raroia in the Tuamotus on 7 August 1947. The crew made successful landfall and, thanks to a global network of engaged ham radio users, were able to alert the authorities regarding their safety just before a big search was scheduled to be triggered.

Although the Kon-Tiki expedition did nothing to prove Heyerdahl’s theory, it did spark interest and debate in the field of anthropology and the study of ancient civilisations’ seafaring capabilities.

Heyerdahl’s book about his experience Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific in a Raft became a bestseller. It was published in Norwegian in 1948, and with great success in English in 1950. Many other translations would follow. A documentary about the expedition, also called Kon-Tiki, was produced from a write-up and expansion of the crew’s filmstrip notes and won an Academy Award in 1951.

The original Kon-Tiki raft is now on display in the Kon-Tiki Museum at Bygdøy in Oslo.

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Postscript
There’s another Tiki you should know about. The “Plastiki” was the name of a unique boat and expedition led by environmentalist David de Rothschild in 2010. The boat, named in tribute to Kon-Tiki, was made from approximately 12,500 recyclable PET plastic bottles and other recycled materials. It aimed to raise awareness about plastic pollution in the oceans. The Plastiki set sail from San Francisco, California, on 10 March 2010, and travelled approximately 8,000 nautical miles across the Pacific Ocean, eventually arriving in Sydney, Australia, on 26 July 2010.

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REMORANDOM Book Chapter

Kon-Tiki is featured in REMORANDOM 4